Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-06-03

4
ents, and the long nights in the hospital,
so different from the sickness when you
were at home with mother and sister at
the bedside, and the clock in the hall Civ
ing the exact moment for the medicine;
and that forced march when your legs
ached, and your head ached, aud your
wounds ached, and more than ell your
heart ached. Inconsistencies which had
in it asufocation and
PANG WORSE THAN DEATH.
You never got hardened SIS did the
guardsmsn in the Crimean war, who
heartlessly wrote home to his mother:
81 do not want TO see any more crying
letters come to the Crimea from
you. Those l have received | put into
my rife after loading it, and have
fired them at the Russians, because you
appear to have strong dislike of them.
II you have seen as many killed SIS have
you would not have as many weak ideas
as you now have"
You never felt like that. When 8 SOL
dier's knapsack was found after his death
IN the American war there was generally
careful package containing q Bible, 8
few photographs and letters from home.
On the other hand tens of thousands of
homes waited for news. Parents saving:
"TWenty thousand killed. l wonder if
our boy was among them2" Painting
dead away IL pOsto1fices and telegraph
stations. Both the ears of God filled
with the sobs and agonies of kindred
waiting for news, or dropping under the
announcement of bad news. Speak,
swamps of the C5ickahominy, and mid
night lagoons, and fre-rafts of the Mis-
sisSippi, and gunboats before Vicksburg,
and woods Of Antietam, and tell to all the
mountains and valleys and rivers aud
lakes of north and south, jeremiads of
wartime that have never been sylla0led.
Besides that domestic perturbation and
homesickness of those days put the sweet
domesticity of to-day. The only camp
fire you Can ever sit at Is the one kindled
il stove or furnsce or hearth. Instead Of
8 half ration of salt pork, repast luXuri-
ant because partsken of by loving family
circle and in secret condolences. o, now
| see who those letters are Tor, the letters
you, the young soldier, took SO long i'll
your tent to write, ana that you were so
particular to put in the msil without any
one seeing you least you be tessed by
your comrades. God spared you to get
back, and though the Old people have
gone you have home Of your own C0n-
structiOn, and you often contrast
THOSE AWFUL ABSENCES
and fiIial and Drotherly and lOverly heart
breaks with your present residence,
which is the dearest place you will find
this side OF heaven. The place where
your children were born is the place
where you want TO die. To write the
figures of 1862 l set up four crystals
crystals of tears. To write the figures of
1887 I stand up four members of your
Observation-Disclosures of rosy cheeks and
1aXen hair, if / can get them to stand
still long enough.
Contrast also the religious opportuni-
ties of twenty years ago with now. Often
on the march from Sunday morn till
night, or commanded by officers who
considered the names Of God and Christ
of no use except to swear by. Some
times the drumhead the pulpit, and you
standing in heat or cold, AL the surround
ings of military life having g tendency to
make you reckless. No privacy for pray
er or Undertaking. No sound of church
bells. Sabbaths spent far away from the
place where you were brought up. Now,
the choicest salctuarles, essy pew, all
Christian surroundings, the air full of
God and Christ, and heaven and doXoIOgy.
Three mountains lifting themselves into
the holy liSht-Mount Sinai laundering
its law, Mount Calvary pleading the sac
rife, Mount Pisgsh displaying the prom
ised land
Contrast of national condition: 1862,
spending money, by the millions, il de-
VISITATION of property and life; 1887, the
finances so reconstructed that all the
stock gamblers o. Wall street combined
cannot make q national panic; 1862,
surgeons of the land setting broken bones,
and amputating gsngrened limbs, and
studying gunshGt fractures, and invent
ing easy ambulanCes Tor the wounded al
dying; 1887, surgeons giving their atten-
tiOGs to those in casualty OF agriculture,
of commerce or mechanical life, the rush
ing of the ambulance through cur streets,
not suggesting battle but quick relief OF
some one
FALLEN IN PEACEFUL INDUSTRIES;
1862, 80, 0C0 600 inhabitants in this land;
1857, 50, 900, 900; 1862, wheat about so, :.
10000 bushels; 1887, the wheat will be
about 500, OO0,0 900 bushels; 1862, Pacific
coast five weeks from the Atlantic; 1887,
for three reasons, Union Pacific; Southern
Pacific and Northern Pacific, only seven
days across. Look at the long line OF
churches, universities, asylums and
houses with which during the last few
years this land has been decorated.
Living soldiers of the north and south,
take new and special ordination at this
season of the year, to garland the s6pul
chres of your fallen comrades. Nothing
is too good for their memories. Turn eli
the private tombs and the national Gene
teries into gardens. Ye dead of Malvern
Hill, and Cold Harbor, and MurfreesbOrO,
and Manassas Junction, and Cumberland
Gap, and field hospital, receive these
floral offerings of the living soldiers.
But they shall come again, all the dead
troops. We sometimes talk about earth
ly military reviews, such as took place in
Paris in the time of Marshal Ney. in Lon
don in the time of Wellington, and in cur
Ovn land, but what tame things COM
pared with the final review, when all the
armies OF the ages shall pass for devine
and angelic inspection. St. John says
the armies of heaven ride on white nor
SEES, and l don't know but many Of tie
old cavalry horses of earthly battle, that
were wounded and worn out in service,
may have resurrection. 1t would be only
fair that, raised up and ennObled, they
would be resurrected for the grand review
of the Judgment day. 1t would not take
any more power to reconstruct their
bodies than to reconstruct ours, and
should be very glad to see them among
the white horses of ApOcalyptic vision.
Hark to
THE TRUMPET BLAST,
the reveille of tn last judgment! They
come up. All the srmies of
all lands and all cen.
turtles, on whichever side they